It is pretty obvious to me that most here have never owned a business or experienced the hopelessness that one feels when the infrastructure that supported acceptable business practice starts to crumble. One comment "that a long time local shop already has a base of local business, so, why not cut 'me' a break" is an example of lack of understanding that a business sustains itself by supporting established customers and by adding new ones. For every new customer, an old one either expires or loses interest in photography.
What with digital taking over the camera market, there are fewer and fewer revenue producing sources for the small camera shop. Giant big-box computer stores have cornered the market on photo paper. The revenue stream has shifted from camera shops to those types of stores and to manufacturers of printer inks, etc.
By what means is a shop owner to generate cash to pay bills (even if he/she personally works the shop during all its open hours)? If the owner wants to actually derive a life from his/her entrepreneurship, it requires him/her to take at least a little time off - and that requires hiring help. What can he/she offer the help in the way of an incentive so that the help (if they have the talent and inclination) will stay long enough to become qualified to answer questions and give the kind of service the lack of which is expressed in this thread?
B&H and the like used to be the shops you could explore from the back of a catalogue. Now, they have pretty much become the source for camera equipment.
I shop them and have used them. But, I bought both of my film SLRs at local shops. I'm not saying that any of you are wrong to save dollars by shopping online, but you should be aware that doing so does have consequences - positive and negative - on photography.
The local shop doesn't match online prices because it doesn't make business sense for him/her to do so. If you are selling an item with less margin that you need in order to pay for the item and contribute to defraying your overhead, you are only contributing to your own eventual demise. You cannot make up losses by selling more merchandise and creating ever increasing losses.
In the end, we all lose, really.
I remember when the big box computer stores first arrived on the scene. CompUSA (it wasn't called that at first) was selling software with a no questions asked guarantee - just to get people into the door. If you didn't like the software for any reason, you could return it for refund or exchange (even if you had made an illegal copy).
Prices were cheaper . . . and customers flocked to the stores.
Today, you will notice that prices among all the "competing" big box computer stores are almost identical. The main difference is that the small mom and pops operated by folks who were really excited about computers are all gone, unable to support the overhead involved in operating a store because the big volume migrated to the big box stores.
The same has happened in photography, stationery/office supplies, audio equipment, etc. Once they own the market, the big guys don't need to worry about service (and have so many locations, they have difficulty in hiring/keeping qualified help).
In my view, it's a constant downward spiral in terms of service that we have traded-in for a temporary price advantage.
Sorry to rant, but this thread touched a nerve.
Caruso
and I'd bet we have the whole country beat in that dept. I was referring to the Ritz/Wolfe jobbers. 
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